Raymond Roussel

Raymond Roussel ( born January 20, 1877 in Paris, † July 14, 1933 in Palermo) was a French writer.

Life

Raymond Roussel came from a very wealthy middle-class family and spent one according to his own judgment very happy childhood. He studied at the Conservatory in his hometown music, then devoted himself but the poetry and wrote at seventeen his first work in La Doublure Alexandrian verse, but had no success with the publication. In his work, Impressions d' Afrique he described a completely imaginary Africa.

In the years 1920-1921 he undertook a trip around the world, including in the footsteps of Pierre Loti, but always emphasized the separation between this trip and his poetic creation. Michel Leiris, he financed an expedition to Africa. In a constructed especially for him caravans he undertook a journey to Italy, where he this by Mussolini and Pope Pius XI. let marvel. 1932 presented a Roussel his literary activity and devoted himself exclusively and manic game of chess. His longtime psychiatrist Pierre Janet was. Roussel committed suicide on July 14, 1933 in Palermo at the Hotel delle Palme life.

The literary work of Roussel's based upon an architecture developed by himself writing technique, which is based on puns and sound associations. Roussel explained this technique in his 1935 book published in Comment j'ai écrit certains de mes livres ( dt As I wrote some of my books). In this respect, Roussel was the forerunner of the " automatic writing " of the Surrealists.

Roussel developed in the early 1930s Roussel reading machine as a reading aid for its nested texts.

Works (selection)

  • Locus Solus. In the printed version of 1914 and supplemented by episodes from the original version first published. Deciphered by Stefan Zweifel, comment and transmitted from the French. The other library, Berlin 2012
  • Locus Solus. 2nd Edition Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / M. 1983, ISBN 3-518-01559-1 ( translated by Cajetan friend).
  • The predestined. 2 plays; " The star on his forehead " and "Sunshine Dust " ( " L' étoile au front" and "La poussière du soleil "). Hanser, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-446-12492-6 ( translated by Klaus Völker and Jürg Laederach, ed. Klaus peoples ).
  • Impressions of Africa ( " Impressions d' Afrique "). Matthes and Seitz, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-88221-213-6 ( translated by Cajetan friend).
  • Nouvelles impressions d' Afrique. Publishing text and criticism, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-88377-017-5 (French / German, translated by Hanns Grössel ).
  • In Havana. A novel fragment. Syndicate / EVA, Frankfurt / M. 1984, ISBN 3-434-46031-4 ( ed. / Translated by Hanns Grössel ).
674338
de